Don't play ball - deflect her question. Tell her you respect her beliefs and have no intention of trying to change her views and suggest she should also respect your beliefs and that despite your differences that you can find some common ground. Don't admit to visiting apostate websites and if necessary stop doing so for a period so you can tell her that you are not. Tell her how important she is to you and how much you love her and that should be all that is important. She is probably torn between a desire to maintain contact with you and her cult conditioning telling her not to. Try to appeal to that part of her that wants to maintain contact and give that part of her an excuse to maintain contact. Good luck
Frazzled UBM
JoinedPosts by Frazzled UBM
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57
Please...I need your help
by Strawberryfieldsforever inmy heart is heavy as i write this letter.
i have been trying to live my life as best that i can since leaving jehovah's witnesses.
my dad was not a witness and was my rock when i left the religion.
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Frazzled UBM
Maybe it is like the fourth hijacked plane on 9/11 - the hijackers cut off communications but then the passengers overwhelmed the hijackers (who were acting alone) and the plane crashed or alternatively the pilots cooperated with the hijackers by turning the plane around and then put it on auto-pilot but subsequently there was a fight and the pilots ended up dead and so no-one could operate the plane. That could explain why the plane kept flying without communciation but no ransom has been demanded.
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Donations - how much is normal?
by Frazzled UBM inhow much would a well-off witness be expected to donate?
my wife has just withdrawn a few hundred pounds from her account and refuses to tell me why so i suspect she plans to donate it as she hasn't donated for a while because she knows i don't want our money going to the organisation.
is it likely that she is feeling under pressure to make a large donation?.
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Frazzled UBM
Thanks for the support tailspin
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Donations - how much is normal?
by Frazzled UBM inhow much would a well-off witness be expected to donate?
my wife has just withdrawn a few hundred pounds from her account and refuses to tell me why so i suspect she plans to donate it as she hasn't donated for a while because she knows i don't want our money going to the organisation.
is it likely that she is feeling under pressure to make a large donation?.
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Frazzled UBM
Thanks emeth - Unfortuantley it is a reality that I am the family banker. If not for the money I earn my wife would not be able to provide the substantial financial support she gives to her family. 'You and your family are depending on my money' I doubt the people on the board would agree that the guidance from the GB about education has left them making a decent living. In most cases the advice from the GB about higher education has left them with a substantial handicap that they struggle to overcome once they realise they have been misled and short-changed by the GB.
'And there is no prohibition on higher education. People can decide themselves what they will do.' This is a typical piece of Orwellian double-speak. They create the illusion of choice and then make it pretty clear what choice a 'good' Witness would make. In fact they also make it cler that it is Satan that inspires people to seek a career and go to university. That was very clear in the recent WTS study on the subject:
Paragraph 11:“Satan promotes the idea that a career in his world will satisfy a person, but Christians should take into account the importance of satisfying their spiritual need…Dedicated Christianslive for God’s will, not Satan’s… However, many of today’s educational courses allow little time for a servant of Jehovah to meditate and to satisfy his spiritual need.”
The GB’s attitude to higher education was also set out clearly in a March 6, 2012 Letter to Elders
“Some of our brothers are pursuing higher education, feeling that they can acquire a measure of financial security. As you are aware, the educational system varies from country to country. In the United States, for example, public schools offer 12 years of basic education. Thereafter, students may choose to attend university for four or more years, leading to a bachelor's degree or to postgraduate studies for careers in medicine, law, engineering, and so forth. Such university education is what we mean when the term "higher education" is used.—w05 10/1 pp. 26-31.
Of course, education is an essential part of Christian life, and we highly value it. Education equips us to care for our responsibilities, both material and spiritual. (1 Tim. 5:8) However, Satan, the master of deception, has made the pursuit of higher education dangerous for a Christian. (2 Cor. 11:14) Many of our young people have been misled from the faith or have become involved in immorality as a result of pursuing higher education. The "fight for the faith" is especially challenging when one leaves the good influence of his home and congregation and places himself in the university environment. (Jude 3) Besides involving bad associations, higher education often erodes faith in Jehovah God and in the Bible [what they really mean here is faith in the organisation]. All must weigh carefully the disadvantages and any perceived advantages of pursuing higher education before determining what they will do. Christians must remember that the purpose of any supplementary education should be to praise Jehovah and serve him as much and as effectively as possible, while providing for material needs.—Eccl. 12:13.”
I love the way the GB has turned ignorance into a virtue and knowledge and criticial thinking into a vice. emeth - Wake up and smell the coffee!
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Donations - how much is normal?
by Frazzled UBM inhow much would a well-off witness be expected to donate?
my wife has just withdrawn a few hundred pounds from her account and refuses to tell me why so i suspect she plans to donate it as she hasn't donated for a while because she knows i don't want our money going to the organisation.
is it likely that she is feeling under pressure to make a large donation?.
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Frazzled UBM
Hi Kate
Thanks for your comments. Of course I want her out but I am not going to force the issue and can live with the status quo. I married her for better or worse and love her unconditionally so I will not stop loving her even if she can't extract herself - which I accept she may not be able to do purely form a social/family point of view. She is a victim. But she also behaves like a child in many respects because of her cult upbringing so that means sometimes I need to treat her like a child to manage her behaviour.
Fraz
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50
Donations - how much is normal?
by Frazzled UBM inhow much would a well-off witness be expected to donate?
my wife has just withdrawn a few hundred pounds from her account and refuses to tell me why so i suspect she plans to donate it as she hasn't donated for a while because she knows i don't want our money going to the organisation.
is it likely that she is feeling under pressure to make a large donation?.
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Frazzled UBM
emeth - thanks for judging me - good to see Witness habits die hard - please explain your comment but I guess ipso facto I am bad because I side with SATAN as I have confessed on the thread asking this question. Do you think I was out of line to criticise her hypocrisy of swallowing WBTS BS about higher education and then expecting me to fork out from the money I earn by virtue of my higher education to help out her family impoverished by accepting the WBTS BS about higher education? I am actually a very loving husband given I have a wife who is impaired by taking too much direction from a bunch of power crazed old men in New York. But when she is not in cult mode we get along very well - thank you very much. Fraz
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50
Donations - how much is normal?
by Frazzled UBM inhow much would a well-off witness be expected to donate?
my wife has just withdrawn a few hundred pounds from her account and refuses to tell me why so i suspect she plans to donate it as she hasn't donated for a while because she knows i don't want our money going to the organisation.
is it likely that she is feeling under pressure to make a large donation?.
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Frazzled UBM
So my wife asked me for money today. I said to her: 'You have your own money from working, I am not asking you to contribute any of that to household expenses, you can spend it as you see fit and you don't have to tell me what you are spending it on but if you want me to give you additional money you need to explain why." She confessed that the £800 she had withdrawn she had sent to her father to fix the roof on their house. I said that's fine I don't have a problem with you helping your family financially. Apparently she had been embarrassed to tell me because when I criticised her for going to the WT study on higher education I had pointed out the hypocrisy of her and her family depending on my money derived from my Satan inspired uiniversity education and career when they had all only graduated high school based on the WBTS prohibition on higher education and so did not earn enough money to support themselves. She had responded with outrage that I suggested that her parents might need to rely on my money. I am hoping this experience has helped her to wake up a little.
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Wake up and smell the cult! please I'm begging you.
by sparrowdown inat times i yearn for those i love that are still "in" to just wake up and smell the cult.. i end up feeling sorry for them yet angry at them at the same time.. i know each person is on their own journey and its a process,.
but i just wish the process would hurry up already!.
when will this nightmare end.
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Frazzled UBM
sparrowdown - I can very much relate to what you said in your OP. When I realised what my wife was stuck in and saw the gaping holes in what they taught, I thought it was just a matter of me explaining those holes and she would go "Oh yes now I see" and leave. How wrong I was! It has been a bitter learning experience for me. Probably the most frustrating experience of my life. I am far more philosophical these days.
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Frazzled UBM
Alphaman - also very plausible. The only problem is the fact that after 5 days no one has made a ransom demand. Unless they think that by getting the relatives to believe they are dead, it will make it easier to get them to pay the ransom once they realise they are alive.
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Frazzled UBM
Latest theory is that there was a structural crack underneath one of the transmitters on the roof of the plane that caused a slow depressurisation in the cabin leading to loss of consciousness and at the same time caused the air traffic communications to fail. Apparently other Boeing aircraft have ahd this problem. Interesting threory. Sounds plausible